Kingston Negroni

Negroni

A Negroni is 30ml each of gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, stirred with ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with an orange peel expressed over the top. About 2.4 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s; the IBA builds the drink in the glass and garnishes it with half an orange slice. Difford’s Guide gives the most widely reported account: Florence in 1919, at the Casoni Bar, where the bartender Fosco Scarselli is said to have replaced the soda in Count Camillo Negroni’s Americano with gin. The Oxford Companion has the drink named in a surviving letter of October 1920 and then absent under that name until 1947. A French book of 1929 by Alimbau and Milhorat, in the Internet Archive’s scan, gives equal parts of the three as the Campari Mixte. Each third has a job. Gin gives strength and juniper, the red bitter gives bitterness and orange, and the vermouth gives body and sugar. With no juice or soda in the glass, a tired vermouth shows at once.

Boulevardier

A Boulevardier is 45ml bourbon, 30ml Campari and 30ml sweet vermouth, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with orange peel. It is the bourbon Negroni: the same Campari and vermouth with bourbon in place of gin, and that one change makes it warmer and rounder. About 3.0 UK units. It first appeared in print in Barflies and Cocktails, Harry MacElhone’s book, published in Paris in 1927, in a chapter by the columnist Arthur Moss, as the cocktail of Erskine Gwynne, an American in Paris who, Difford’s Guide says, helped found a monthly magazine called Boulevardier. Barflies and Cocktails gives the 1927 recipe as equal parts Campari, Italian vermouth and bourbon. The measures here are the IBA’s, with the bourbon ahead of the other two. Equal parts works well with a lighter vermouth. Against a rich one such as Carpano Antica Formula, the extra 15ml of bourbon keeps the drink from turning heavy.

White Negroni

A White Negroni is 45ml of London Dry gin, 30ml of Lillet Blanc and 20ml of Suze, stirred over one large cube in a rocks glass for 20 to 30 seconds, with a lemon twist expressed over the top and dropped in. About 2.7 UK units. Punch reports that Wayne Collins, a London bartender, made the first ones on a hot summer night in 2001 near Bordeaux, where he and Nick Blacknell, then director of Plymouth Gin, were in town for Vinexpo. Rummaging in a local liquor store for the ingredients, they bought French bottles instead, Punch says: Suze for the bitter, Lillet Blanc for the wine. Collins chose the name, he told Punch, because it would be easy to communicate to the trade. The shape survives and every flavour moves. Suze is bitter from gentian root, earthy where Campari is orange peel, and Lillet is lighter and more honeyed than sweet vermouth. Suze is also the louder of the two bitters, which is why ours trims it to 20ml rather than pouring three equal measures.

Jungle Bird

A Jungle Bird is 45ml of blackstrap rum, 22.5ml of Campari, 45ml of fresh pineapple juice, 15ml of fresh lime juice and 15ml of demerara syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a double rocks glass, with a pineapple wedge. About 2.4 UK units. These are the IBA’s measures. It is credited to Jeffrey Ong, beverage manager at the Aviary Bar of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, where it was poured as a welcome drink for guests; Difford’s Guide dates it to the hotel’s opening on 6 July 1973. The recipe reached print in John J. Poister’s New American Bartender’s Guide in 1989. Campari is what sets it apart. Pineapple has the body and sugar to carry the bitterness, and a heavy rum underneath holds both.